Chapter 099: A Sure Win
"One more question, Aizen-sensei."
Matsushita Yusuke chose his words carefully.
"If I decline the rematch, what happens to Kijishi?"
Aizen blinked, thought it over for a moment, and then couldn't help a short laugh.
"Matsushita-kun always finds the angles I don't expect. Honestly, I hadn't considered that one closely."
But the general shape of an answer was there.
"He would probably be quietly disposed of."
The reason was simple.
"The Squad 11 captaincy is a position that lives entirely by strength. Strength is how you take it, and it's how it gets taken from you."
Failing to hold what you had fought for: losing it was the natural consequence.
Aizen didn't go into the operational details. There was no need.
"Someone inside the Gotei 13 would handle it. As for who came next, there would probably be an internal selection process. Though I realize this may come across as speaking poorly of someone behind their back."
A brief pause. A trace of something that might have been weariness moved through his expression, and when he spoke it was in his most level tone.
"But whoever that process produced would most likely just be a second Kijishi."
Aizen rarely offered verdicts this direct. That he was doing so now said something about how clearly Kijishi had demonstrated the point by example.
If the leadership was this hollow, what could anyone below it realistically have become?
Matsushita Yusuke heard this and his brow pulled together hard. He sat with it for a visible moment.
Then he made his decision.
"Aizen-sensei. I'll fight."
A pause.
The question didn't come out, but Aizen's expression made it clear it was right there.
Whether Yusuke was thinking about keeping a low profile, or laying the groundwork for something down the road: by any conventional reasoning, declining was the sensible choice for where he was right now.
And yet.
That was the conventional view. Matsushita Yusuke operated differently.
He had a quest.
Kijishi could use Bankai. They had fought once already and Yusuke had experience with him now. If he didn't squeeze every available point out of a rematch against an opponent that strong, that was waste on a scale that physically pained him to consider.
It wasn't about being greedy. It was about seeing a high-yield quest sitting right in front of him and being constitutionally incapable of walking past it.
You do not let go of something this profitable without at least wringing it completely dry first.
None of that could be said out loud, so Matsushita Yusuke rubbed the back of his head and produced the version that would actually land.
"Back down from him? Not a chance."
That particular delivery made Aizen inhale his tea wrong. He spent a few seconds coughing before he recovered.
He looked at Matsushita Yusuke for a long moment, holding the look until the other person started to feel it, then pulled his gaze back.
"Reckless. But the conviction behind it is not nothing."
He accepted it.
Aizen stood up and addressed Yusuke again.
"I need to notify my captain, who will pass it up to Squad 1. There should be a response by this evening, probably. The timing may shift slightly, but roughly half a month is what we're looking at."
Half a month between the two fights.
Time for both sides to prepare fully, with no room for either to claim insufficient notice.
"Enough time for both sides to get into proper condition. No excuses available to anyone."
He paused.
"Truthfully, I still have some concern about this."
The words came out quietly, almost to himself.
"The opponent is still a captain. His Bankai ceiling may be limited, but that does not make the outcome certain. Though since Matsushita-kun is committed, I won't push further on it."
"Thank you for understanding, Aizen-sensei."
"Is there anything I can help with?"
The decision was made, and Aizen shifted registers naturally. As the person on Matsushita Yusuke's side, the most useful contribution during the next half month was additional training.
He raised one hand and pointed to himself, his tone easy.
"Would another round of private sessions be useful?"
The offer was sound. Matsushita Yusuke clearly had a different idea, though. He considered it, shook his head slowly, and said:
"I do want your help, Aizen-sensei. Just not with training. Could you put me in contact with some other Shinigami?"
No immediate reply. Aizen's gaze dropped slightly, his expression moving into something thoughtful.
"What kind of Shinigami specifically?"
"Elemental-type Zanpakuto users. Doesn't matter how strong, just that they have Elemental-type releases."
Matsushita Yusuke raised his right hand and opened and closed the fist once, then added with a smile:
"Reaching Bankai in half a month would be a stretch for me. But if I think about it differently, there's another way to approach this that has much better odds."
Preparation. Targeted preparation.
Not getting stronger in some general sense, but getting specifically ready to beat Kijishi Kenpachi.
Aizen thought it through and agreed without hesitation. The request itself was not difficult to fulfill. This was well within easy reach for someone in his position.
"I'll get back to you on that once things are arranged. Matsushita-kun, make sure you rest properly in the meantime."
"I will, Aizen-sensei."
He watched Aizen's back as he left, then headed out himself.
Walking back down the corridor, he pulled up the Zanpakuto panel and had a quick look at where things stood.
Reaching Bankai in half a month was Ichigo Kurosaki's thing. And Ichigo's version hadn't been a standard release from any direction: everything about it ran against convention from start to finish.
That path was not available to him.
So the question was what else could be done in this window to push combat capability as far as possible.
The answer was obvious.
Another Zanpakuto release.
Kido was sitting at 52. The Bankai threshold was 70. Eighteen points away. And based on everything he knew about how these numbers actually moved, those eighteen points were not something you sprinted through in half a month. The experience required to close that gap had a weight to it that didn't compress cleanly under time pressure.
Rule-type and Biological-type Zanpakuto users were rare enough that working with them in volume wasn't practical.
Elemental-type was the most common of the remaining categories. The numbers were there to work with.
If he could unlock one more release in the next half month, the fight became a different fight entirely.
This was how you went in with a sure win.